Image: iStock. By Jeanne Joe Perrone for Ravishly.

“It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want—oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” ? Mark Twain

We all long for something. I have always longed for a true partner in crime, an epic love. Yet, for two years of my adult life, I didn’t date — at all.

On purpose.

I was in graduate school when the relationship I had white-knuckled finally imploded — and with it, my desire to take care of myself. I rebounded, hard, and swung violently away from the things I had treasured as central to myself and my values during the relationship.

I didn’t want to be that girl anymore. I didn’t want to be myself anymore. (Five things about dating over 40. Post continues after video.)

I had spring fever, and then some.

There were six months of denial. I drank every night, didn’t go home for days, and danced on tables. I became a cliché; an approximation and imitation of freedom. Then, after my rebound broke up with me, I remember stopping cold in the middle of my walk through a subway tunnel and staring at the tiles on the wall, thinking, “OK, no more avoidance. It’s time to pay attention to this mess.”

To do that, I promised myself that I wouldn’t date at all for an entire year. On purpose.

And I did it. Well, not exactly: my self-imposed romantic and sexual chastity ended up lasting two full years. Believe me, it was a situation of desperate times calling for desperate measures. For two years, my heart ached: I threw things across the room in rages, yelled at God, and fell into stony silences. For two years, I was locked in a battle with myself.

And it sure wasn’t romantic. (Post continues after gallery.) 

Celebrities talking about their break ups.

Jennifer Aniston.It was possibly one of the most talked about Hollywood break ups - Jen and Brad. In an interview with Vanity Fair Jen shared her experience, "There are many stages of grief. It's sad, something coming to an end. It cracks you open, in a waycracks you open to feeling. When you try to avoid the pain, it creates greater pain. I'm a human being, having a human experience in front of the world. I wish it weren't in front of the world. I try really hard to rise above it." Image via WikiCommons.

Rita Ora.

Rita discussed her break up with Calvin Harris in Marie Claire, "It was more of a thing where I was in awe. I was at that point in my relationship where I felt he could do no wrong. I thought he had my back and that he'd never steer me wrong. But then 'I Will Never Let You Down' came out, and everything started to go a bit weird. I don't know if it was because business was mixed with personal or what." Image via Instagram (@ritaora).

Demi Moore.

Demi Moore discussed her breakup with Ashton Kutcher with Harpers Bazar - "I used to think that what scared me was the idea of being abandoned until someone said to me, 'Only children can be abandoned. Adults can't be abandoned because we have a choice. Children don't have a choice.' So I started to rethink. 'OK, it's not that. What's the underlying thread that really scares me?' I think what scares me is not having the courage to reach my full potential." Image via Twitter (@justdemi).

Kim Kardashian.

On her website, KimKardashian.com Kim shared her breakup with Kris Humphries, "I felt like I was on a fast roller coaster and couldn't get off when now I know I probably should have. I got caught up with the hoopla and the filming of the TV show that when I probably should have ended my relationship, I didn't know how to and didn't want to disappoint a lot of people." Image via Instagram.

J-Lo.

"It felt like my heart had been torn out of my chest." - Jennifer Lopez on Ben Affleck, in her memoir True Love. Image via Instagram.

Reese Witherspoon"[Divorce is] very humiliating and very isolating... But, by the way, if it's not painful, maybe it wasn't the right decision to marry to begin with." - Elle Magazine. Image via WikiCommons.

Cameron Diaz.

"When I was going through a bit of a heartbreak a little while ago, I said to a friend, 'Wow, this really hurts!' And he said to me, 'That just shows you what your capacity for loving is.' I would rather have my heart broken a thousand times than never to love at all. I have so much love to give I'm not empty of love, I'm full of love." - Cameron discussing her break up with Alex Rodriguez in InStyle. Image via Instagram.

Katy Perry.

During an interview on The Project Katy discussed her break up with Russell Brand - "Sometimes you can be blinded by your extreme emotions. I definitely was looking for answers during that time I wrote that song ["The Grace of God"]. And yeah, I was depressed, and it was sad, and there were thoughts, but there were never actions, thankfully." Image via Instagram.

Taylor Swift.

"There's just been this earth-shattering, not recent, but absolute crash-and-burn heartbreak, and that will turn out to be what the next album is about. The only way that I can feel better about myself pull myself out of that awful pain of losing someone is writing songs about it to get some sort of clarity." - Taylor Swift, Vogue. Image via Instagram.

Emma Stone."I was crawling on the floor. I remember throwing up. I remember being on the floor... I have never felt anything quite like that. It was so visceral. It's like someone has killed you and you have to live through it and watch it happen. It was awful." - Emma Stone on her first heartbreak, Interview. Image via WikiCommons.

I’m not writing to say that my two years of not dating were magical and wonderful and that I rediscovered myself and fell in love with life again. I’m not even writing to say that I think everyone should take a long break from dating.

I am writing to say that it actually and ultimately worked for me, and it is an option.

You don’t have to date. You don’t have to not date. You don’t have to do anything. I am mostly writing to say that you get to — have to — make choices, even in matters of the heart. And, sometimes, we have other things that require our full attention.

Dating is all kinds of things. But my heartache, and my exile, wasn’t even about dating. For years I had wanted — longed for — so much: things I admitted I wanted, things I wanted but wouldn’t admit to wanting, things that scared me, things I didn’t recognise, things that I thought were wrong, things I thought I’d never have, things I didn’t even know how to name.

There were labyrinths, sinkholes, and quasars in my mind that I finally began to navigate, and I knew, somehow, bringing any other person into the picture would only cloud my vision; that this time was necessary — not exactly for healing what was broken, but for figuring out what was really going on in the first place.

Maybe nothing was broken, actually. I saw through a glass darkly, urgently seeking my own face.

Image via iStock.

The truth is, I didn’t date for two years because I didn’t even remotely want to.

I’ve always been interested in intimacy, but my first forays into the dating world revealed I had a problem with it. How could I be intimate with someone else when I was not able to be fully honest with myself about my own longings?

I spent those two years doing lots of little, ordinary things: errands, classes, interviews, and Netflix nights. As well as some pretty monumental things: I completed a masters degree, began my acting career and moved into a bunk bed with another girl. I began to identify and sift through a serious faith crisis. I drank wine and cried in the shower. I laughed with my roommates. I gave up movies for Lent (hardest thing ever).

What I didn’t do was discover myself — that is something I don’t understand as a concept. (How could I stumble across myself, like an island in an external sea, when I am swimming in myself every day?).

But I did, through the long days and nights of grocery shopping, sweeping floors, auditioning, and riding the subway, become brave, or desperate, or exhausted enough to face myself in a way that I never had before.

Slowly, gingerly, like a cat on a hot tin roof, I became honest with myself about what I wanted.

And it happened on purpose.

Did taking two years off of dating culminate in a fairy-tale ending? Um, no. I almost wish I could say it did, but here’s the thing: honesty, longing, and loving self-care take a long time to work into real life. I wish I could tell you that I met the love of my life and lived happily ever after as soon as my self-imposed da